Indoor Gardening - Part I

Add as a preferred source on Google

Everyone wants a well-decorated house. People can go to any extent to make their homes look beautiful. But nothing can match what gardens can do to your home. A garden not only enhances the beauty of your house but also helps in bringing you close to nature. Having the natural greens around you can just turn your home into a haven.

Having a garden does not only mean having a lawn and some flowering plants. There is a lot you can do to your house with plants.

Given below are some ideas and tips that you can use to grow your own garden.

Splash some colour with indoor water gardening
What is the first word that comes to your mind when you hear 'gardening'? Most of us will answer 'soil'. But do you know you can have a beautiful indoor garden even without making a mess with soil? That is what is called indoor water gardening.

Indoor water gardening helps you to add individuality to your gardening. Not only does it have less maintenance hassles but helps you bring into your house some outdoors. Here are a few tips on indoor water gardening.

Selecting a spot
If you think indoor plants don't need sunlight then you are wrong. Be it the living room or the bedroom but make sure the plant receives adequate sunlight. Lights of the early morning or mild light all over the day will prove beneficial to the plant. Scorching heat of the afternoon can burn the plant. However, extreme cold too can be harmful for the plant.

The ideal container
You can use a wide range of pots beginning from ceramic, plastic, sealed cement, porcelain or metal. However, avoid those made of copper, brass or lead. You can use your creativity and choose washtubs, crocks etc. Wooden pots are not very advisable for water gardening. Water can cause bacterial damage in the wood. But if you still want to use wooden pots then wrap it with thick plastic bag.

There is no formula about the standard size of pot. You can select pots of any shape and size to fit in your room. Ideally, use a pot big enough to grow plants and small enough to handle properly.

The colour of the container too is not an issue. You can use pots of any colour that go well with the walls of the room. However, if you are worried about the formation of algae use dark containers. Dark colours will help prevent algae formation.

How to plant?
Once you have chosen a container, fill it about three-fourths full of support materials like florist's foam, gravel, pearl chips, pebbles, coarse sand, marbles, beads or any other similar materials. You can use your imagination here. A small piece of charcoal or a pinch of powdered charcoal can also be added to the support materials. This will help prevent the water from turning foul.

Now, make ready a dilute water and fertilizer solution by using a water-soluble fertilizer at the recommended rate. Add this solution to the support material to fill the pot.

Now select the plant you wish to have in the pot. You can either use a plant cutting or use a rooted plant. Be sure to wash all soil off the roots and cut off any dead or decayed material. Then again you can decide if you want a single plant or varieties of plants. Arrange the plant materials in an attractive manner.

Please take care to keep the water-fertilizer solution at the proper level in the container by regularly adding to the pot what ever is required. Every four to six weeks, replace the nutrient solution. If green algae growth is a problem, change the water solution more frequently or use an opaque container.

You can also keep some fishes in the pot to make it more natural. Fishes will eat up the harmful organisms and keep the water clean for longer.

Points to remember

• Don't overload the pot with many plants. Keep it simple with few plants.
• In a pot make an intelligent blend of horizontal and vertical plants. It makes the view more interesting.
• Use fertilizer rarely as it gets the major ones form water and soil where they sit. Be sure that the fertilizer is quite friendly to the fish if they are there.
• Scrub the pot whenever necessary.
• It is a retreat for birds, fish and mosquitoes. You can float the doughnuts of Bacillus thuringiensis to prevent the multiplication of mosquitoes. As a precautionary measure you can keep a bubbler so that the water doesn't stand still.